Extract Practice: 24

        In this extract, I believe that the director is trying to involve the audience with the intense situation happening between the characters. The genre that was most likely chosen by the director would be “thriller.” He/she wants the audience to feel the stress a detective goes through when it comes to getting the answers of a suspect who wants to outsmart him. This situation is very extreme, as lives are put out on the line due to a bomb. The detective’s job could also be lost because he is threatening the woman as he interrogates her, which is frowned upon in that industry. 

The first thing that was noticed in the extract was the close-ups on the character’s faces. The author could have chosen another angle or shot but I believe that they went with it because they were trying to get the attention of the audience to focus on the facial expressions. Lighting in the next few scenes is low. However, it is bright enough to shine light on the character’s faces, and have the setting visible. But with low lighting, it can also cast shadows to make things look mysterious, which is probably what the director wanted to do. The location should be established as an interrogation room, where the detective is interviewing his suspect with a pressing attitude. There are hardly any props or furniture because the director wants his audience to have their central point on the sound. It then leads to the next scene of other agents observing this interrogation from another room, on some monitors. 

After presenting that there are supervisors watching the interview, the second scene is now both of the characters communicating. The sound you hear in this scene is the dialogue between the suspect and the detective. An interrogation cannot just be silence, so the director created a plot of the woman knowing about a bomb, and wanting to outsmart the man. While this conversation goes on between the two, editing is incorporated into a shot-reverse-shot. This was added to the scene to follow the dialogue of the characters. That way it shows who is talking and what their actions or expressions are while the camera is on them. Another example of how the expressions are presented is zooming. After one of the characters would talk, it would cut to an already close shot, followed by zooming more into the face of the other. This movement keeps the audience engaged since the camera is going into a focal point; in this case, the face of the characters. The zooming also has an effect of claustrophobia, which can lead a person to feel anxiety or stress. It is assumed when watching a show or a movie when the camera zooms far into a character’s face, it is for something dramatic or important.

In the third scene, you can hear the incidental sound that plays along with the actions. This music is supposed to create a feeling of stress or intensity between the characters and the situation they are in. The loud music plays in the ears of the audience and it affects them, by making them worry about what will happen next. The sound is followed up by a split-screen edited in. The director wanted a scene of the supervisor running towards the room they are in, to stop whatever the original detective had started. Assuming he/she wanted to show both the events occurring at the same time; the scene escalated so quickly, that it shows scene A of the supervisor trying to go and stop whatever is happening in scene B. It later matches up into one scene once all characters are in the same location. The vigorous event had finally ended after the tension between the detective and the suspect was removed.

To summarize, the director’s vision is surrounding the idea of putting the audience into the scene, and having them feel what the characters are feeling. He/she wants to evoke a feeling of stress or anxiety because if they were in that situation, their lives would be at risk. All of these filming elements help the director present that idea to the viewers, of how intense an interrogation could be. 

CCR Question 4

CCR Question 3

CCR Question 2

Critical Creative Reflection

This is my reflection on the final task that was made to be submitted to Cambridge. I made separate videos for each question. They will be on separate blogs, so the one below is the first question. I managed to pass the minimum time for the CCR, so each video is approximately 3-4 minutes long. The theme for this was a talk show hosted by my dog, Milo. I am very happy he cooperated with me. He was able to look at the camera when I asked him to, and there is a little surprise at the end of the whole presentation. My voice may sound shaky, and I do stutter, but those are my flaws when I am present in front of a camera. Answering questions in an interview is much harder than remembering lines for a part as an actor. I was still able to deliver the answers to the questions. Editing probably took an hour for each video. I have never used a voice over for any of my videos, but it is great that I finally got to use the tool in the end with my CCR. I just wish that I had another person to do my dog's voice for me. Also, I added a split screen of my dog "reacting" to the song as it played next to him. I had to sort through the videos and organize which ones went with each question. After figuring out where each video went, I had to record my voice, with the lines that my dog would be "saying". Therefore, I had a script for the dialogue my dog would have, and I added some of the things I would say to him as well. This was a little difficult because I had to edit it all on my phone, on iMovie. Unfortunately, I did not have any clips of behind the scene footage to put in the CCR because I do not have the SD card, and my friend was not able to send the videos. However, that should not really affect my grade as a whole. Thankfully, I was able to finish the movie and reflect on this whole journey in AICE Media Studies.

Final project: Movie

I am posting the final task that I have been talking about for the past 2 months. The movie had to be between a minute and 55 to two minutes flat. This was obviously more time than the music video, and we had to create our own story. In a music video, the song tells the story, but with a movie, my group and I had to create a pitch. This was all a very long process because the storyboard took even longer to create. We needed about 10 whole pages for our plan for the final task. Everyone had different ideas of what to do, and we ended up picking a thriller based on a kidnapper and his next victim. Of course, we had the idea for a thriller movie, but we had to create a whole opening sequence. A movie can open in so many ways, and that is what my group had to work on. We established characters and provided some background of who they are. After finding out about characters, we had to establish their setting and actions. The story for the kidnapper and the victim would be that they are getting ready for different reasons. But the parallels with this is that one is getting ready to kidnap his next victim, and the other is getting ready without knowing that she will be the next victim. This is obviously a more complex story than what a commercial and music video has to offer. Continuing on, film days were very long, especially after being at school all day. We upgraded to another camera, that gave a better quality than what a regular phone would. There was a wider variety of angles, shots, and movements. We were able to incorporate a trunk shot, which I never thought I would use for this class. I also added the idea of putting an action match with water. We needed an action match, but no one had an idea of how to do it. This was perfect for our two different characters because one could be showering, and that helps transition into the next scene of the guy turning off the water to brush his teeth. We have obviously come very far in this class, with all the work everyone has put into their videos; especially with mine (my group's). This project was very stressful but very much worth it.

Second Project: Music Video

This post is to talk about my progress from the commercial to the music video. With this next assignment, it was meant to be around a minute long. This time, I only had a partner for my assignment, because while picking a song, a friend disagreed. We were able to get our work done, especially since choosing the music took two days. Every time we considered a song, we had to make sure if we had many things available, for example, props, actors, and even a location. Many ideas came to me for sad songs, so Darwin and I ended up choosing a song by Sam Smith and asked his friend if he could be apart of it. Doing this project made you have to become organized. For example, we had to plan filming days, because it had to work according to everyone's schedule. I was able to provide a location and any props that we needed. Also, in order for our group to meet up, I gave my friends transportation as well. If I needed to do whatever to get the assignment done, then I did it. The main editing tool we used during this project was cross-cutting scenes of two different characters. We used the camera provided by our school again and even used the tripod for a scene. On the first filming day, we shot everything we could and began to edit. There would also be days where we would edit at school and get advice from our teacher. Once we realized that our video was still short and it looked choppy, we returned to the drawing board and figured out how to fix the issues. This project took more time than the commercial. Refilming and re-editing took place, and we were able to complete the music video. Although this took more effort, I would love to do it again, especially since I made a new friend out of it. 

Our First Project: Commercial

I am uploading the first project that we ever worked on in AICE Media. This assignment was a good one to start with. A thing I appreciate for this class is that we get to do this work in a group. In this project, we got to brainstorm ideas for a 30 second commercial about a specific product. Vans ended up being the company for our commercial, and we followed the conventions of making it adventurous. While filming angles and movements, we had to start with the basics.  For example, we hardly had any faces in our commercial, so the camera was always at a low angle, at our feet. We did not want to have extreme scenes for our first video. However, we still made it fun with certain transitions. We incorporated scenes that had to be edited together, like our action match. We had a groupmate walk in front of the camera, and that started the next scene of her walking up some stairs. We also did a clip transition where I put my foot up to the camera, leading into the scene of Darwin walking back up the steps. I believe this was the smoothest transition we could ever get out of the three projects. I like to think of this project as the assignment we did before "leaving the nest." I say that because the school campus was the only location we were allowed to film and edit. The only problem with filming at school was that we still had to follow rules. So it really wasn't the best decision to do a skating commercial on campus. Also, this was one of the times we had to find music that went along with our commercial, and that was the first thing we found when discussing. I am so glad I did a project like this, I wish I got it again.

 

Adjusting to the New Norm

It has only been a week of online learning, and I can work at home just fine. However, doing school work on my computer can have its pros and cons. I am able to wake up at whatever time I want and begin working on anything on my computer. I can be in bed, at my desk, in the living room, or anywhere it is peaceful and quiet for me to learn. These are all great pros for online learning, but the cons still exist. I have found myself to procrastinate more, and not be able to finish my assignments once I start working on them. It should not be admitted, but I get distracted easily and decide to "finish my homework" later. Also, I have six teachers to learn from, so they are all giving work at one time. This workload then piles up. When I was at school, I would be more organized and motivated to complete any task, especially with the help of my teachers being face-to-face. I do not find this easy at all, because all of these factors affect my ability to learn. Without balancing my classes properly, I start to worry about stuff that I am missing, but also not wanting to do anything about it if I am. Media Studies has been a great class, I have enjoyed it for half of the year I was at school. However, the more the course progressed, the more tedious the work got. My group and I have been able to finish our movie successfully, and we were assigned to work on our Critical Reflections individually. I was hoping to pay most of my attention to this video once we came back to school from Spring Break. With self-isolation from the pandemic, it has made it a little hard to complete, but I am pushing myself to finish editing, and submitting the assignment successfully for Cambridge.
Below is a screenshot of the questions we have been working on all year for every CCR. In another tab, I have answered these questions, because I needed an idea of what to say for my videos.

Re-editing: Adding the newly filmed scenes

My group and I had to start inserting the scenes that were re-shot. We replaced them with the first takes. Those were in its place so that my group would know which ones were needed to be replaced. The original ones were way too long, so that is why they needed to be refilmed in the first place. Also, there was the establishing shot that did not have the same car we used in the last scenes. That was the first thing that was put into the video. Editing this part was literally taking the video from the raw footage section and placing it onto the track. Rafael had to get rid of the scene of Darwin shaving his face. He then placed the new scene of him brushing his teeth. That was basically the same action of replacing, like with the establishing shot. On accident, Rafael put the establishing shots in the wrong order. Since we had two houses, and each corresponded to a character. So he had to fix that once we told him. Also, I told him that the new dialogue scene should be inserted and replaced the other that was already a bit choppy. Once we figured out all of the other scenes and followed the storyboard to know where they should be located, we would be done editing. My group and I decided to do this before putting the titles. There will be a whole other blog based solely on the editing of the titles and names that will be put into the film.

The screenshot below shows the 1/3 of all the footage we got. Starting from "44" are all of the videos that were made on the re-shoot day.